Well how do we stop a long term secular trend? Going to drop baskets of money from planes over rural areas? Lol. Why have rural areas consistently shunned government help? Do you not follow politics? And new fields are being created/expanding. Why are so many jobs being created over the last several years? Why are there so many open positions throughout various sectors? Why is there a truck driver shortage if that field is being “nuked” from orbit. There’s a lot of assumptions by those articles. None of those articles (that don’t require a subscription) are saying relevant skills aren’t necessary. The issue is how and the implementation of relevant skills. Or West Texas. Or a number of the smaller under 250k population metros that aren’t considered small towns. Well duh... no jobs are free from disruption.... Why even work at all?!?! Lol. What a ridiculous argument. And staying in an area with been prospects is hard too. Markets and technology are a part of human history. So you don’t want to work and you want everyone to be paid to not work? You want the government to protect you from everything? Is that a good sell in America? Where did I say it’s good? What else ya got? You seem adverse to taking responsibility and hard work, Lol. I’ll keep that in mind when I ever start publicly speaking or running for office... You are a hardcore socialist aren’t you? You seem to believe that people are helpless and need a bunch of handouts... that’s been a great sell in rural area for the past 50 years....
Acknowledging the problem seems to be half the battle here. But, in terms of solutions, making sure that the technologically displaced have the means to sustain a way of life... "dropping money from planes" is not too far off. Something like UBI would go a long way towards sustaining people in lower income and low cost of living areas. I'm not really sure what your point is here. Are you saying that these areas typically vote against their economic interest (I agree), so we shouldn't help them? (I disagree) Yes, but those new fields are not employing the same numbers of people, not by a long shot. Job creation rate, unemployment, and GDP are all flawed metrics that don't really tell the whole picture. A displaced manufacturing worker who is now doing Uber, selling Advocare supplements, and has picked up a part time gig waiting tables... that person is not coming out with a net positive from that trade off. We're not counting the quality of these jobs, we're not counting the benefits lost, we're not counting "under-employment" (people whose skills/degrees are above their work), we're not counting workforce attrition/dropout, and we're leaning heavily on numbers that don't really tell the story of the economy on Main Street. For example: self-driving trucks will be an enormous boon to our GDP, but it will displace millions of late-middle-aged men. Open positions? What do you mean? You'll need to be more specific. We have a shortage of doctors, but it doesn't mean that doctors are immune to having their cognitive skills automated. There's a truck driver shortage is because that job sucks and also because the boomer drivers are retiring and young men are not exactly itching to sign up for a job that looks to be completely phased out in the next 10 years. I've already said this, but I'll say it again -- relevant skills will only get you so far. The automation wave is coming, and for most of our most popular jobs (driver, retail, call center, etc) the effects are already showing up. You can choose to believe that we can simply fix the problem with training, but there's no data to back that up. Skill enhancement is one thing (a specialization, a new technique, etc), wholesale re-training is another (changing fields). You're strawmanning. Believe it or not, we will eventually have to reconcile with a world that doesn't require human labor, but that's a different time and topic. My point to you is that you are simply pushing the problem around (creating a lot of human suffering and misery in the process) and not fixing it. Once again another strawman. Bringing this back to the original point -- rural and swing-state America need help -- you seem to want to tell them "tough ****". I'm telling you that is not adequate electorally, ethically, or practically. You seem set in your beliefs that anybody can be re-trained to do something productively sustainable. The evidence says otherwise, and that is only becoming more true as time goes by. "Don't mistake something natural for something good" is an old saying. Allow me to amend it, "Don't mistake something that is natural for something that is acceptable". You seem to not be bothered by the fact that this great displacement is happening (or you simply don't believe it is happening at all). This attitude that anyone who ends up in the dust bin of unemployability deserves their fate because they are too lazy to either leave and go chase their job in another market (a job that is likely evaporating there too) or too lazy to get re-trained to do something productive... this is a dangerous attitude to have, and certainly a fatal one to hold in the 2020 election. Democrats adopting that "floor lamp" attitude while the rest of the swing states and rural america fall further into the abyss will only further accelerate the rise to power of demagogues like Donald Trump. I can think of nothing more responsible than taking on the task of solving one of the greatest threats to our civilization in its history. Know what I'm really adverse to? Hard work that nets no results. I'd rather work smart than hard any day. The aggregate of our values and priorities as voters are reflected in the party. I hope you adjust yours accordingly. I'm not a Socialist (I'm not sure where you started assuming I want the government to control the means of production). I'm a Capitalist who understands where our society and technology are headed, for better or worse, and I'd rather they work cooperatively than create some hellscape where there's nothing but Ivory Towers and slums and Jeff Bezos' brain is in a jar controlling Skynet. We're really having two conversations here. One is long term, one is short term. In the short-term, I see the path to victory for the Democrats is taking a firm step left, returning to its populist roots, and rebuilding its long-standing alliance with blue collar America. I see your attitude as nothing but doubling down on the debacle that was 2016 and the further alienation of Middle America. You seem quite proud to thumb your nose and give the bird to everyone who flipped from Obama to Trump. I cannot describe that as anything other than a breathtakingly bad idea.
Gonna re arrange the flow a bit. Honestly, I didn't get that vibe from these last several conversations, especially with the "firm step left, returning to its populist roots" from below. Part of capitalism is failure and adapting to changing circumstances. I do think the government needs to take a greater role in blunting the effects of globalization and automation; we just disagree to how far we should push That's fair. I see your attitude as summed up as "you can lead a horse to water..." with a mix of giving Trump the type of opponent he wants to face. It seems like Trump has been increasingly defining socialism/firm step left as very un American. Does that play well in rural/working class areas? Does being associated with AOC and Omar help? It sucks, but its true. Not proud, unfortunately the truth hurts sometimes. There are reasons why some parts of the country have thrived over the last several decades and some have either stagnated or declined. Not to mention most of the population growth has been along the West Coast and Sun Belt, away from the traditional areas of the midwest and northeast for decades. The hollowing out of rural areas has been devastating. How do you stop that? Half the battle huh? Do you think a UBI would be viewed a positive thing in this 2020 election? You can't stop helping but you can lead a horse to water.... CNBC: US job openings jump to record high of 7.3 million A great way to make some coin if you're a young adult male for about a decade... People need to earn a living before this automation takeover.... which may or may not be as soon as you think. What do you propose? And in the meantime we still need to worry about the next 1 to 20 years. This is becoming a bit grandiose... No, I want them to vote for their economic interests and I don't think a "firm step left" is in their economic interests. No, I simply think you go too far. And what are your views to save the working class with firm left populism? Protectionist isolationism? Mercantilism? A highly regulated economy? A highly taxed population? What will it cost to have your values and priories?
If you have 50-70% of the human population living on some kind of UBI, the human race will be doomed in a few centuries.
If you have 50% of the human population unable to live because there is no work they can do that isn't done better, faster, and cheaper by machines or algorithms, then the human race is already doomed.
Why is that? With the technology and economic sophistication we have, we create a thousand times the wealth per person than we could just 150 years ago, despite also having a lot more people too. If one person's work could sustain a small family 150 years ago, it could sustain a couple thousand people today to the same standard -- or say a couple hundred people to a standard a hundred times better. Now I don't want nor expect that over half the population will not be engaged at all in value creation, but I do have to wonder about this fixation on work -- why did we bother inventing all this stuff if people are just to be wage slaves their whole lives anyway?
Not to step into your debate but I can answer this one. There is a shortage because the new regulations require electronic log books to log drivers time. Drivers can no longer "cook the books" and fudge their OTR (on the rode) time. Given how much of a shortage there is many of them must have been really pencil whipping their time. It has caused us a lot of headaches where I work. We have to schedule long lead times to schedule loads. We had to contract out dedicated drivers for a lot of money for the things we need on a regular basis that would shut us down if we were waiting on a driver. This will drive up wages in the field and increase the price of shipping but I do think this was a good regulation for the safety aspect. As far as automated trucks, that would be something to see at a busy truck dock where they are constantly changing receive and ship times with multiple big trucks backing in and pulling out from the docks. I am not saying it can't be automated but it will not be easy to do with schedules changing, Managing shipping and receiving is a very dynamic situation and it will take a lot of programming to make it work on the front and back ends of it. I am sure automated trucks would work now to just driving from one destination to another just like the automated passenger cars but the real trick is everything else I said earlier.
The more handouts democrats pander to, the higher the chance Trump gets elected. This is not due to Trump's boondoggling, but his basic understanding of working, middle class Americans and the democrats complete inability to get off "trending" twitter topics and see life in the real world.
I was aware of the bookcooking and the revolt against the electronic trackers, but it's nice to see it confirmed by someone in the industry. As far as automation, if you go to an automated warehouse, you're already seeing this "big rig docking bay" situation play itself out in small scale. The pot of gold awaiting the first companies to produce reliable automation for big rigs is absolutely enormous.
You mean like the handouts Trump promised and didn't deliver? They resurrection of manufacturing, coal, and textiles? Trump ran of bringing back jobs and that didn't work.
He promised an increase in manufacturing jobs and he's done just that. He got aggressive with China and world powers to bring work to the middle class here and yes, it is short sighted and in many ways a "cheat", but people living paycheck to paycheck do not care. The numbers are up across the board and automation will not really hit until his 2nd term is over.
It's a shame the tariffs will start hitting consumers pockets before the election. We're passing 20% increases to consumers in our sector within the next 2 months. It will be a great talking point during the debates.
We will see if the “middle class” feels that way in November. People living paychecks to paychecks honesty haven’t seen much difference, hence the xenophobia lately.
Ive read at least initially that trucks will not be driven in cities with automation. Only by drivers.
This is true. The transition phase concept is that you will have "docking bays" on the outsides of metropolitan areas. Human drivers will take the last 10~ miles to get the goods into the cities.
I knew about the charge in how y’all operate but I know the shale boom was causing a lot of demand as the pipelines couldn’t be built fast enough.
I voted Dem in every election in my life, but Tulsi is the only Dem who can earn my vote this time. If she's not there, I'll sit this one out. The Democrats don't have anything but a bunch of milquetoast centrists. "FBI Israel war war. . . ." zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Goodbye Democrat Party.
